What is the significance of meditation?

25 February, 2003

"Meditation" or "Dhyana" means to go beyond the limitations of the physical body and the mind. Only when you transcend the limited perspective of the body and the mind do you have a complete dimension of life within you. When you are identified as the body, your whole life is only about survival. Your whole perspective of life will be simply survival. When you are identified as the mind, your whole perspective is enslaved to the social perspective, to the religious perspective, to the family perspective. You can't look beyond that. Only when you become free from the modifications of your own mind will you know the dimension of the beyond. Can you see that this body and this mind are not yours? It is something that you have accumulated over a period of time. Your body is just a heap of food you have eaten; your mind is just a heap of impressions you have gathered from the outside.

What you have accumulated you handled it well, it's your property like your home, like the property that you own, like your bank balance, you have a body and a mind. You have a good bank balance, a good body and a good mind. Good! This is needed to live a good life. But it is not sufficient. It is not fulfilling yet. No human being will ever be fulfilled by these things. They will only make his life comfortable and conducive. Especially if you see Western society, everything that you are dreaming of, every average citizen has. But do you think they are fulfilled, that they are blissful? Definitely not! Nowhere near bliss. So Dhyana is to transcend the limitations of body and mind, and you begin to experience yourself in a much deeper dimension.

Your instruments, body and mind are okay to live in this world for survival. But life will not be fulfilled with them. And if you don't know who you are, are you capable of knowing what the world is? Is it possible? If you do not know who you are, can you understand what the world is, what the person near you is? If you want to know the true quality of who you are, only if you transcend the limitations of your body and mind can there be a possibility for you to experience it. Yoga and Dhyana are scientific tools, which help you to transcend the limitations of your body and mind and experience the true quality of who you are. Without experiencing this, just eating, sleeping, reproducing and dying, your life will not be fulfilled with these.

All those things are needed in your life — this eating, sleeping and reproducing. But our life is not complete because of these, even if you have fulfilled all these fully isn't it? This is because the quality of a human being has crossed a certain boundary of awareness. Now it is not physical fulfilment is needed, but you are not going to be fulfilled with that. It has to seek something more, otherwise it will never be satisfied. It has to become unlimited. So Dhyana or meditation is a way of moving into the unlimited dimension of who you are.

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is a realised master, yogi and mystic, who has founded Isha Foundation, an international public service organisation. Sadhguru created Isha Yoga, as the vehicle to transmit a deep experience of the self. Isha Foundation administers the Dhyanalinga multi-religious temple, ashram and meditation shrine. A night long sathsang with Sadhguru will be held on Mahashivaratri, March 1st, when energies are most conducive for spiritual growth, at Isha Yoga Centre, 30kms from Coimbatore.

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is founder of the Isha Foundation, an international public service organisation. For information on programs offered by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, visit www.ishafoundation.org or call: 04222-2319655 or Sujata (022) 24304693 or email at yogacentre@Ishafoundation.org